ABSTRACT
The first of these occasions occurred following the premiere of The Father at the Casino Theatre of Copenhagen in 1887. The production, directed by Hans Riber Hunderup, was given a highly controversial reception by the Danish press. While Hunderup and his future wife, Johanne Krum, were praised for their performance in the leading roles, most reviewers were shocked by the crude realism of the action and outraged by the sight of a straitjacket on the stage (Marker and Marker 2002: 6–7). Yet, encouraged by the relative success of the production, Strindberg was anxious to get two other recently written plays, Miss Julie and Creditors, produced in Denmark. He was soon disillusioned, as the commercial theatres kept rejecting them. He also had a number of new play ideas, but had no chance to get any of his work staged in his native Sweden. At the same time, Strindberg’s wife, Siri, was desperate to return to her acting career. For these reasons the couple – with Siri as artistic director – founded the Scandinavian Experimental Theatre (Skandinavisk försöksteater) in Copenhagen, which after careful preparations opened to the public on 9 March 1889.
